1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for bagging solid articles of a predetermined shape such as ice cubes and sealing the bag of articles to automatically store the sealed bag of articles in a stocker or the like.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A bagging apparatus of this kind is proposed, for example, in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 1-33455, The bagging apparatus comprises a bag storage mechanism arranged below an ice delivery chute at one side thereof for storing a number of vertically stacked bags, a feeding mechanism arranged above the bag storage mechanism and having a suction pad movable for feeding a first bag in the stored bags under the ice delivery chute in such a manner that an opening of the bag is positioned upward, a support mechanism having a pair of clamping means arranged to hold both sides of the upper end of the bag fed by the feeding mechanism, a bag deploying mechanism for deploying the upper opening of the bag, which deploying mechanism includes means for moving the pair of clamping means closer to each other and means for moving a first suction pad for sucking one side of the upper end of the bag and a second suction pad for sucking the other side of the upper end of the bag away from each other, a sealing mechanism for sealing the upper opening of the bag when a predetermined amount of articles has been supplied into the bag, and a discharge chute arranged below the support mechanism for sliding down the sealed bag of articles when the action of the support mechanism has been released.
In the conventional bagging apparatus described above, the first bag in the stored bags is held by suction force of the suction pad when it is fed under the ice delivery chute. It is, however, difficult to increase the suction force of the pad. In addition, the process of feeding the bag under the ice delivery chute and deploying the upper opening of the bag is carried out by the feeding mechanism, the support mechanism and the deploying mechanism. With such an arrangement of these mechanisms, the bagging apparatus becomes complicated in construction.